Two new publications by Gabrielle Davidson

The first article, published in Scientific Reports shows that Juvenile Eurasian jays start to develop an understanding of how objects support one another by 6 months of age, independently of early life experiences. Read more here: http://www.nature.com/articles/srep40062

The second article, published in Biology Letters investigates why passerine birds vary in eye colour by reconstructing the evolutionary history of these colour traits. Birds that did not nest in cavities (e.g. open-cup nesters) were under strong selection to evolve dark eyes. This suggests that the need to camouflage from predators may constrain the evolution of brightly coloured eyes in birds. Read more here: http://rsbl.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/13/1/20160783